REVIEWED - SHOOTING DOGS: IN ITS unflinching depiction of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Shooting Dogs inevitably invites comparisons with Terry George's deeply involving treatment of the same theme in Hotel Rwanda, which filtered the tragedy through the experiences of a Kigali hotel manager who sheltered and saved more than 1,000 refugees.
Shooting Dogs adopts a more traditional narrative model by showing the horror of the genocide through the eyes of two white people, but this does not invalidate its achievements. The screenplay was inspired by the experiences of David Belton, a BBC Newsnight journalist in Rwanda at the time, and under those circumstances, the film's chosen perspective is the most honest and uncompromising approach to take.
Set and shot in Kigali, it stars Hugh Dancy as an idealistic young Englishman working as a teacher at the École Technique Officielle. It is run by a Catholic priest, Fr Christopher (John Hurt), who has spent almost all of his working life in Africa, and he takes a particular interest in the progress of a 14-year-old Tutsi pupil, Marie (Clare Hope-Ashitey), a talented student and runner.
When Hutu children pelt Marie with stones and call her a cockroach, their favourite epithet for Tutsis, it is clear that intolerance is breeding hatred and being passed down through the generations. That hatred in expressed through mass destruction, and when the genocide begins in April 1994, the school becomes a temporary shelter for the Tutsis.
The points made by the film have been made before, in Hotel Rwanda and in dramas set in other conflicts. But they are well worth restating as Shooting Dogs emphasises the impotence of the United Nations peacekeepers in Kigali and how the rest of the world turned a blind eye to the horror that followed. The personal drama of the film is rooted in the guilt felt by Belton, who collaborated on the screenplay, when he joined the evacuating white population and left the Tutsis to their fate.
Directed with a simmering anger and a firm sense of urgency by Michael Caton-Jones, this thoughtful and necessarily shocking film is anchored in Hurt's moving, dignified portrayal of the priest whose face is lined with desperation and disillusionment at the consequences. This is the fifth film released here this month to feature the prolific Hurt, and it is graced by one of the finest, most affecting performances of his career.
